Jeffrey Manber

April 02, 2010

After all the months of hard work, of the long days put in by everyone from the Houston team to Kentucky students, we are now in the countdown to the scheduled Monday launch of the NanoRacks Platform on board Shuttle Discovery, STS-131.

The platform is scheduled to be inserted permanently on board the International Space Station’s U.S. National Laboratory. The platform is for me — and for all of us — a work of elegant art. It represents the best of engineering principals: hardware that is functional and efficient. The platform will allow up to 16 experiments using the CubeSat form factor, a design and shape known to university and researchers world wide. We call them CubeLabs — named by Kris Kimel of Kentucky Space, our major partner.

Not that it was simple to develop this platform. It took the experience of our Houston team, the enthusiasm of students in Kentucky Space and the creativity of everyone involved. What is simple is the premise: that through use of standardized hardware, the cost of space station utilization will be dramatically lowered.

Our idea is already working, we have signed five commercial customers from the Valley Christian High School and Quest Institute to a new pharmaceutical crystal growth effort. That is really exciting for all of us.

But now comes the countdown — I’m heading down this weekend for the launch and to see old friends and begin my own new journey, to promote and market the commercial utilization of our section of the U.S. Space Station National Laboratory. I'm glad that Jim Lumpp from the University of Kentucky will be there. NanRack’s Mike Johnson is staying in Houston because this veteran of so many launches and space engineering projects is just too blasé to be at the Cape! Mike says he would have been there but it's Easter.

Countdowns are nervous - whether cargo ships or manned. This one more so for all of us at NanoRacks and Kentucky Space, but the mission of STS-131 is one heck of a way to launch a new business!

March 09, 2010

Aviation Week has published a terrific article on the Shuttle Discovery flight, STS-131, that will take the innovative microgravity research NanoRacks platform and two "Cubelabs" to the International Space Station next month.

The flight is more than a simple delivery of hardware built right here in Kentucky, exciting as that is, but "could be a harbinger of how the
U.S. hopes to do business in space in the years to come."

In addition to space station work, NanoRacks also also discussion with a other space companies about the use of the standard interface across several different space
vehicles, orbital and suborbital, "so the customer can concentrate on developing the experiment
or other hardware to be flown."

That's key. A focus on something other than the sheer technical challenge of getting to and staying in space represents an exciting new development in the commercialization of space. Working with NanoRacks, Kentucky Space is not only carving out a place for Kentucky-built and integrated suborbital and orbital payloads, but participating directly in the growth of space as a business frontier.

The managing partner for NanoRacks, Jeffrey Manber, also spoke on camera recently while in Lexington about the upcoming flight. Please check it out.

February 24, 2010

Taking a look at the business prospects for sub-orbital research payloads, the Space Business Blog noticed the work being done by NanoRacks and Kentucky Space to make microgravity research on the International Space Station an affordable and repeatable proposition. It likes, in particular, the modular nature of the solution and points out one very important benefit of using Cubelabs:

NanoRacks has developed a standard rack that plugs into a [mid deck locker] on station. NanoRacks worked with Bob Twiggs (co-creater of the CubeSat) from Kentucky Aerospace to build a standard experiment module called the CubeLab. Still 10cm-cubed, and plugs into their rack via a standard USB port. Very plug-and play! I like this. NanoRacks and Kentucky Space intend to offer this CubeLab technology as open-source for the benefit of the industry. One important nugget: the CubeSat has already passed significant ITAR hurdles, and since the CubeLab is based on similar technology to the CubeSat, a business using this open-source technology should have a significantly easier time attracting and working with international customers. NanoRacks goal is to offer Micro-gravity research opportunitis on the ISS, but I think the technology ports very well into the suborbital arena as well.

Space blogs typically focus on hardware and technology, but rarely on the business prospects for that hardware and technology in the developing frontier of commercial space. Read the entire piece from Space Business Blog.

February 15, 2010

Audio of Kris Kimel's appearance on The Space Show Friday is has been posted. In his second appearance on The Space Show, Kris covered the breadth of Kentucky Space activities and answered a number of questions from callers across the country. Listen here.

February 12, 2010

On a visit to Kentucky Space earlier this month, Jeffrey Manber provided an update on the work to make affordable, repeatable micro-gravity research available on the International Space Station. The first of three planned NanoRacks, along with the first two "Cubelabs," will fly on a Shuttle flight, STS-131, to the station in March. More about NanoRacks and this innovative approach to orbital research be found here.

November 04, 2009

This weekend will mark a milestone at Kentucky Space, as it works to deliver the NanoRacks platform on Saturday, November 7, for offgas and EMI testing in preparation for a Shuttle launch to the International Space Station. The rack has been machined and all the electronics have been design, built, tested and coated. It's now being assembled.

Outgassing is a process that results in what many people will recognize as that "new car smell." In this case it will ensure that any volatile compounds exit the hardware prior to arrival on the ISS. EMI, or electromagnetic interference testing, is done to ensure that any electronic device will not radiate electromagnetic radio waves that could affect other electronics onboard the station. EMI can come from any electronic device and generally originates from a switching signal coupling to wires and circuit board traces. Good design will limit the amount of EMI that occurs.

In addition to the NanoRack, Kentucky Space is also busy assembling CubeLabs to accompany the platform on Saturday. The first CubeLab will test the power system and confirm data flow end-to-end, from CubeLab to researcher. In addition, it will test the radiation susceptibility of the cards used in KySat-1, Kentucky Space's first orbital Cubesat, which is being readied for flight.

Finally, to ensure that researchers can create their own CubeLabs and carry out their own experimental program on the International Space Station, we're putting together an Interface Control Document.

October 15, 2009

At a recent meeting in Lexington, Managing Director for Nanoracks, Jeffrey Manber, described the idea behind the use of Nanoracks to host Cubesat-sized modules with individual science and research experiments - called Cubelabs - on the International Space Station. This brand new project will bring microgravity research within reach of many more organizations.

December 09, 2008

Russia and India have signed a pretty interesting accord on future
cooperation in manned space activities. This was a high level meeting between
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The accord paves the way for New Delhi to take a Soyuz seat for one
cosmonaut by 2013 and develop its own manned spacecraft by 2015. That detail
was provided by Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian Space Agency.

Details are still sketchy, but here’s what’s interesting. NASA has no manned
program it can offer to allies. We have backed ourselves into a corner such
that there is precious little today we can dangle before a trading partner.
Saying to a sovereign nation, hey, we can help broker a deal on the Russian
Soyuz to send your guys to the International Space Station, well, that somehow
doesn’t do the trick, does it?

Clearly Russia has a window here, a very large window of several years, in
which Russian space infrastructure will be offered either as a commercial deal
or as part of a larger trade package. In the Indian case, that larger package
included assistance on nuclear reactors. This may be the time to consider how
we can promote the export of our nascent commercial space launch program as
part of our own overall international objectives. To do nothing will leave the
field wide open to both the Chinese and Russian space programs.

December 04, 2008

Washington policy makers have long treated
the marketplace of space differently than other American industries. As damaging protectionist
walls crumbled around the Detroit auto industry, then aviation, and finally even
defense programs, protectionism continued to remain strong for NASA’s space
exploration. The Pentagon’s most advanced military systems use components from
allies worldwide, not solely from American manufacturers. In aviation, the
Boeing 787 Dreamliner outsourced the advanced composite wings to the Japanese
and key sections to dozens of foreign plants. So too with Airbus. And US commercial
satellites routinely are launched into space on French and Russian rockets.

But the space agencies operated under different rules. NASA and NOAA
continue to pursue a nation-first policy, thus ensuring high costs and a
fragile industrial base. Why not, for example, use the Ariane 5 vehicle for our
own manned and unmanned interests? Why not request proposals for next
generation space programs from leading aerospace companies worldwide, while, at
the same time, requiring other nations to open their programs to the same
international competition. The result would be greater industrial capability,
more investment dollars for infrastructure and reduced costs. Instead, we are
saddled with $3 billion dollar NOAA satellites and $5 billion dollar space
telescopes.

I’ve always felt that the execution of the $100 billion dollar International
Space Station was a fossil of Cold War thinking, reflecting none of the lessons
learned in the global marketplace. No other product, whether a satellite, passenger
aircraft or hybrid car, would boast of being composed of Japanese, Russian, European
Union and American hardware selected via international wheeling and dealing,
and not from any competitive process. This is not rocket science. Even
politicians have come to realize that, within reason, open markets benefit the
ingenuity, cost-efficiencies and flexibility of US industry.

The incoming Obama administration could really shake up the space industry
by relegating orbital protectionism, like so many other vestiges of the Cold
War, as a practice whose time has long come and gone. NASA should be directed
to minimize national origin of hardware when planning future programs, and the
Department of Commerce should begin discussions ensuring other nations do the
same. Not the State Department. Let’s leave politics out of this one and reform
ITAR to recognize the reality of a world with ITAR-free satellites. American
has remained strong since World War II by promoting open marketplaces—its high time
to launch that same philosophy into outer space.